Flower shows and open gardens are great places to visit for design inspiration; from flower colours to other visitors’ shoes… which is why so we (Plews) visit gardens and garden shows so we can help turn your garden into a dream not a nightmare.
This week RHS Chelsea Flower Show has been taking place. The Royal Horticultural Society has been putting on their world famous gardening show in London for a hundred years this year. Once the first event of the social calendar for ‘The Season’, it still can have an air of precociousness as well as prestige about it.
As an event it looms large in the diaries of many garden designers, as those who like to follow fashion know there are trends in gardening as in clothes and RHS Chelsea Flower Show is often where the trends can be seen. There were quite a few deceptively simple designs; plus something of a shift towards native species, although not presented in sweeping meadows as at the Olympic stadium last year, but more contained within borders and hedging.
We enjoy guessing which plants are on the ‘up’ list and which are on the ‘down’; and have a light-hearted competition about it. Native species, especially drifts of cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) were prominent in all the garden categories from the large show gardens to the smaller artisan gardens.
Although as it’s only May, late flowering plants are excluded; so there are not likely to be dahlias at Chelsea however fashionable they may be; although you will see them at RHS Flower Shows later in the year.
Meconopsis or the Himalayan blue poppy, was seen in the Pavilion and also in the gardens. A stunning blue flower, we had spotted it the previous year in Scotland.
So here are some of the plants, gardens, garden tools, statues and other gardening sundries that caught our eye.
RHS Chelsea Flower Show a hundred years old this year; and to celebrate gnomes are being allowed into the garden displays. And we spied a gnome or two, these ones ofPrince William and Kate reminded me that the couple’s wedding was a showcase of native British species that were in season. For some wedding flower ideas look at our blog here or a longer article in our eBook “In Your Spring Garden with Plews Garden Design”
We spotted a hundred years of wheelbarrows, or rather a few key changes in garden equipment design, not least the addition of a tyre to the wheel.
We’ll put albums with these and other photos up on our Facebook, Google plus and Pinterest pages (links for these on the righthand tab)
If you’d like Plews to help you with designing a garden that follows fashion or that fits you like a glove, do get in touch.
Related Gardening articles you may enjoy from our Award Winning Blog
Evergreen Shrubs for Foliage Interest
What is Garden Design?
Show Chelsea a Flower
And of course, the eBook, an extended version of the blogs RHS Chelsea 2012-16
